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Because Winifred, the protagonist in A Hundred Tiny Threads is involved in the Suffragette movement, I researched the life of Millicent Fawcett. This was a woman of great courage. What follows is part of one of the talks I give to various groups:

The move for women to have the vote had really started in 1897 when Millicent Fawcett founded the National Union of Women’s Suffrage. Millicent Fawcett believed in peaceful protest. She felt that any violence or trouble would persuade men that women could not be trusted to have the right to vote. Her game plan was patience and logical arguments. Fawcett argued that women could hold responsible posts in society such as sitting on school boards yet were not trusted to vote; she argued that if parliament made laws and if women had to obey those laws, then women should be part of the process of making those laws; she argued that as women had to pay taxes as men, they should have the same rights as men

And one of her most powerful arguments was that wealthy mistresses of large manors and estates employed gardeners, workmen and labourers who could vote……..but the women could not regardless of their wealth…..

However, Fawcett’s progress was very slow. She converted some of the members of the Labour Representation Committee (soon to be the Labour Party) but most men in Parliament believed that women simply would not understand how Parliament worked and therefore should not take part in the electoral process.

This left many women angry and in 1903 the Women’s Social and Political Union (the WSPU) was founded by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Christabel and Sylvia. They wanted women to have the right to vote and they were not prepared to wait. The Union became better known as the Suffragettes. Members of the Suffragettes were prepared to use violence to get what they wanted.

Dame Millicent Fawcett is to be the first woman to be honoured with a statue in Parliament Square, the prime minister has announced. The equal rights campaigner, who dedicated her life to getting the women’s vote, will stand alongside Sir Winston Churchill and Nelson Mandela.

“Sadiq Khan has announced the 59 women and men who fought for women’s suffrage are to be added to the plinth of a statue of suffragist leader Millicent Fawcett. A statue of Fawcett designed by artist Gillian Wearing will be unveiled in London’s Parliament Square in April following a campaign led by Caroline Criado Perez. Fawcett is the first woman to be commemorated with a statue in Parliament Square. 100 years since some women and all men over 21 got the vote – what now? The Mayor of London has announced the names of 59 people who supported the fight for women’s right to vote on the centenary of the Representation of the People Act. The Act allowed some women over 30 and all men over 21 the right to vote.

Theresa May said Dame Millicent “continues to inspire the battle against the injustices of today. It is right and proper that she is honoured in Parliament Square alongside former leaders who changed our country. Her statue will stand as a reminder of how politics only has value if it works for everyone in society.”

The new statue will be funded using the £5m fund announced in last year’s spring Budget to celebrate this year’s centenary of the first British women to get the vote.

Dame Millicent died in 1929, a year after women were granted the vote on equal terms to men.

Welcoming the announcement, chief executive Sam Smethers called it a, “fitting tribute. Her contribution was great but she has been overlooked and unrecognised until now. By honouring her we also honour the wider suffrage movement.”

The Fawcett Society: @fawcettsociety is the UK’s leading charity campaigning for gender equality and women’s rights.

The Fawcett Society’s story begins with Millicent Fawcett, a suffragist and women’s rights campaigner who made it her lifetime’s work to secure women the right to vote.

At the age of 19, she organised signatures for the first petition for women’s suffrage, though she was too young to sign it herself. She became President of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies (the NUWSS) from 1907-19. With 50,000 members it was the largest organisation agitating for female suffrage at the time. Her powerful and peaceful mass campaign was instrumental in securing the first extension of voting rights for women in 1918.

Millicent worked alongside the Suffragettes, who employed different, and more militant tactics in their campaign. From the beginning, Millicent took an interest in women’s empowerment in its broadest sense; the suffragette colours were green, white and violet which stood for Give Women Votes. The suffragist colours, by contrast, reflected their broader movement: green, white and red or Give Women Rights.

In 1913 she was awarded a brooch engraved with “For Steadfastness and Courage”, which The Fawcett Society still has today. Millicent Fawcett died in 1929, a year after women were finally given equal voting rights. Her work has continued ever since, with The London Society for Women’s Suffrage renamed as The Fawcett Society in her honour in 1953.

2018 marks 100 years since women first secured the right to vote, and Millicent Fawcett will be making history again. She’ll become the first woman commemorated with a statue in Parliament Square – a landmark moment for the wider suffrage movement, and for women everywhere.

She went on to lead the constitutional suffrage campaign and made this cause her lifetime’s work, securing equal voting rights 62 years later. Today they continue her legacy of fighting sexism and gender inequality through hard-hitting campaigns and impactful research. They believe in a society where no one is prevented from reaching their full potential because of their gender.

The Fawcett Society campaigns to:

Close the gender pay gap. Secure equal power. Challenge attitudes and change minds. Defend women’s rights post-Brexit. There must be no turning the clock back.

THEIR VISION: A society in which the choices you can make and the control you have over your life are no longer determined by your gender.

THEIR MISSION: We publish compelling research to educate, inform and lead the debate. We bring together politicians, academics, grassroots activists and wider civil society to develop innovative, practical solutions

They campaign with women and men to make change happen.

Judith Barrow,originally from Saddleworth, near Oldham,has lived in Pembrokeshire, Wales, for thirty eight years. She has BA (Hons) in Literature with the Open University, a Diploma in Drama from Swansea University and a MA in Creative Writing with the University of Wales Trinity St David’s College, Carmarthen. She has had short stories, plays, reviews and articles, published throughout the British Isles and has won several poetry competitions. She has completed three children’s books.She is also a Creative Writing tutor for Pembrokeshire County Council.

She says:-My latest book, A Hundred Tiny Threads, is the prequel to the trilogy and is the story of Mary Howarth’s mother,Winifred, and father,Bill. Set between 1910 & 1924 it is a the time of the Suffragettes, WW1 and the Black and Tans, sent to Ireland to cover the rebellion and fight for freedom from the UK and the influenza epidemic. It is inevitable that what forms the lives, personalities and characters of Winifred and Bill eventually affects the lives of their children, Tom,Mary, Patrick and Ellen

Tenby Arts Festival 2016: Day Three: Monday 26th September.

As usual our Book Fair is part of the Tenby Arts Festival . We’re at Church House on the first day, Saturday 24th September, between 11am – 3pm and it’s free to come in and chat with all the authors and publishers.

And here are the events of the Third Day,

Monday 26th

Sunderland Flying Boats

John Evans

A talk about the history of flying boats in Pembroke Dock.

The Project Manager of the Pembroke Dock Sunderland Trust, John Evans, was awarded the British Empire Medal (B.E.M.) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for ‘The Preservation of Pembroke Dock and its Military Past’.Pembroke Dock’s remarkable naval, military and aviation history has always fascinated him and he began detailed research into RAF Pembroke Dock and its flying boats, making contacts worldwide with so many individuals who had served at ‘PD’, in peacetime and in war.Reunions and theme weeks led directly to the setting up of the town’s Museum Trust which, in 2001, took over the running of the Gun Tower Museum in one of the two forts built to defend the Royal Dockyard. John became the Museum Trust’s first chairman.Following the rediscovery of the remains of a Sunderland flying boat, which sank off Pembroke Dock in 1940, and the lifting of one of its Pegasus engines, the Sunderland Trust was formed by John and three Trustees in 2006. With the support in particular of Texaco and the Milford Haven Port Authority the Sunderland Trust successfully bid for funding, and set up the Flying Boat Centre. This opened in the former dockyard in June 2009 and has had over 30,000 visitors.Later it transferred to the Royal Dockyard Chapel which has been beautifully restored by Pembrokeshire County Council. The very new ‘Pembroke Dock Heritage Centre’ welcomed its first visitors on April 11th, and on April 29th 2015 Her Majesty The Queen – accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh – officially opened the centre in the town’s Bicentennial Year.John’s specialist areas of research are flying boats and Welsh aviation history and he is often in demand for historical information on aviation subjects.

Church House

2pm

£5

HUMAN EVOLUTION

Our Place in Natural History

George Hancock

Were we created in our present form by intelligent design, or did we evolve from earlier species? If we evolved, then how and when? Are we still evolving, and if so how will we end up? Are there other creatures with high intelligence outside our planet, or are we unique in that respect? George will examine the theories, explain the arguments and help you reach your own conclusions. You may find food for thought and even surprises.

Church House

4pm

£5

The Hands of Genius

Graham Short

The most amazing and unusual presentation you are likely to see– thought-provoking, awe-inspiring and entertaining!

He knew the day he left school at the age of 15 without any qualifications, that he had already failed on an epic scale. He took the advice of an inspirational teacher, whose parting words, to him as he left school for the last time, were, “For the rest of your life, remember, if you want to achieve, you must think differently.”

This advice led him to secure the most enviable and prestigious client list imaginable, which included the Royal Family, The National Gallery, Rolls Royce, Chanel, Harrods, Fortnum & Mason, Richard Branson, Andrew Lloyd-Webber, Kim Kardashian, Elton John, Uri Geller and many, many other celebrities.

After carving The Lord’s Prayer on the head of a pin, and engraving the words, ‘Nothing is Impossible’ along the sharp edge of a Wilkinson Sword razor blade, he has appeared in many news, radio and television features internationally, and been the subject of a Discovery Channel documentary. HIs last exhibition in Kelso, Scotland sold out in just two minutes, with sales of over £400,000 for art that was smaller than a red human blood cell and totally invisible to the naked eye!

He goes to greater lengths than anyone else in the world in an effort to produce art on such a minute scale. Working from midnight to 5.00 am, to avoid vibration from passing traffic, he lowers his pulse to 20 beats a minute, and while wearing a stethoscope – and with the aid of potassium, magnesium and beta-blockers – he engraves between heartbeats when he is perfectly still. Regular injections of Botox in his eyelids ensure there is no distraction from eye-muscles and nerves.

Church House

7.30pm

£12 (to include a light supper)

PINT-SIZED PLAYS ARE BACK AGAIN FOR ANOTHER ROUND!

Short (5-10 minutes) snappy plays that are performed free of charge in pubs around Tenby. They are winners of an international playwriting competition that attracts hundreds of entries every year. Some will make you think, some will make you chuckle, many are just downright hilarious. This extremely popular entertainment is now a regular part of the Festival and always surprises the audiences who appreciate the quirky subjects and amusing performances whilst having a convivial drink. Come early, get them in, sit back and enjoy!

Tenby Arts Festival 2016: Day Two: Sunday 25th September.

As usual our Book Fair is part of the Tenby Arts Festival . We’re at Church House on the first day, Saturday 24th September, between 11am – 3pm and it’s free to come in and chat with all the authors and publishers.

And here are the events of the second day: Sunday 25th

Tenby at Dawn

A guided tour of how to take better pictures in Tenby harbour.This free photography workshop is aimed at beginner level, although everyone is welcome.Early start to catch the dawn light 06:30am – 08:30amMeeting point: The Croft, opposite the Cliffe-Norton hotelFinish point: Castle Hill.

Advice and tuition from a professional photographer on How To Take Better Pictures.

Free ( Voluntary Donations to the RNLI)

Festival Church Service

A Special Service of Sung Eucharist to launch the Festival

All are welcome.

St Mary’s Church

10am

Sandcastle Competition

A perennial favourite of the festival and a great way for parents and children to take part together. Your entry does not even have to be a castle. So get your creative juices working and come and have fun with bucket and spade. Who knows, you might even win a cash prize.

Judges will be the Mayor of Tenby and Mr Henry Gardiner.

Castle Beach 11am – 2pm

Free

It’s Where We Go

is a site-specific performance which explores the British seaside and the phenomenon of nostalgia, through live performance and audio. The audience are invited into a collective and personal journey, as they are given a pair of headphones and an audio device, which invites them into a curated collection of memories gathered from across the country, related to the seaside.
Incorporating both local themes and universal, the performance questions the notion of ‘The British Seaside’ as a recognisable neutral space as well as including specific stories from beaches all over the UK.
It’s Where We Go, celebrates personal, local and national identity and community, and the audience are invited to share their own memories on a postcard at the end of the performance, which leaves traces of their identity upon the place and within the collected archive of the performance.
The legacy that this creates will be available as an online public platform for further contribution, discovery and exploration.

Castle Beach

11am – 2pm

Free

Jazz Brunch

Madi Stimpson Trio
Madi and his trio take you on a wide-genre-engaging journey via Django Reinhardt, Chet Atkins and Les Paul to some of Madi’s contemporaries, including Van Morrison, Moving Hearts and even a bit of Frank Zappa. Jazz, Roots & Boots, perhaps, but always engaging with awe inspiring musicianship.

All this and a delicious meal with views across the picturesque Tenby Harbour.

And here are the events of the day: Saturday 24th

Brass Ensemble

To announce the opening of the festival with a swing, a brass ensemble will perform a medley of popular musical numbers.

Outside St Mary’s Church

High Street

11am

Free

Book Fair

For the fifth year running the Book Fair is the popular opening event in Church House for the Tenby Arts Festival. We will have twenty-eight authors and two publishers for all to chat with, who are either Welsh based or have set their books in Wales. There will be three competitions this time: an adults short story competition, one for teenagers and one for children. Details to be announced separately in May through the media.
Talks, books, relaxing music, refreshments; a morning of friendly chatter and discussion – a great morning for all.

Here is what a visitor said of last year’s fair (see picture):

“This weekend I’ve attended the Book Fair at the Tenby Arts Festival. Having seen the busy London Book Fair last year and on the other end of the spectrum some deserted halls with only two tables and four attendees elsewhere, I was pleasantly surprised to find a good vibe and a great buzz in a busy hall with lots of mingling and literary delights.”

Church House
11am – 3pm

Free

Sand Circles

Marc Treanor

The essence of all you see, only exists because of a very profound order of certain repeating mathematical formulas that create the foundation of all matter, from atoms to galaxies. Sacred Geometry is the ancient science that explores and explains the energy patterns that create and unify all things, and reveals the precise way that the energy of Creation organises itself. On every scale, every natural pattern of growth or movement conforms inevitably to one or more of these geometric shapes. The strands of our DNA, the cornea of our eye, snow flakes, pine cones, flower petals, diamond crystals, the branching of trees, the path of lightning, a nautilus shell, the star we spin around, the galaxy we spiral within, and all life forms as we know them emerge out of timeless geometric codes. Sacred Geometry may very well provide the answers that you have been looking for. (http://www.maya48.com/)

The patterns Marc creates on the beaches are all inspired by sacred geometry. The idea of ‘sacredness’ transpires from the realisation that these patterns appear everywhere from the very small, the quantum field or the microcosm, to the very large, the cosmic realms or the macrocosm.

North Beach

Free

Jack Harris

Jack Harris writes and performs literate, compassionate songs, about subjects as disparate as Caribbean drinking festivals, the colour of a potato flower and the lives of great poets like Sylvia Plath and Elizabeth Bishop.
These have won him considerable acclaim. The Telegraph voted his album ‘The Flame and the Pelican’ #5 in their top 10 Roots/Folk albums of 2012. Q magazine praised his ‘unique lyrical mind’, and Maverick UK awarded the record its full 10/10 rating.
Jack is happiest when playing live. He has brought his music to a loyal, ever-growing audience, at festivals, venues and skating rinks across the world. On occasion he has opened for some of Folk’s biggest names, including Anais Mitchell, Cara Dillon and Dick Gaughan. His live show is a riveting mix of song craft and theatrical story-telling, delivered with warm voice, dry humour and nimble, string-picking fingers. Come on out and see.

Church House

8.00pm

£10

Cantemus

The Messiah

Under the baton of Welsh National Opera chorus master, Alexander Martin, singers from all over Pembrokeshire and beyond, choir members or not will rehearse and perform Handel’s Messiah in the beautiful surroundings of St Mary’s Church.

Born in London, Alexander Martin studied Music at St John’s College, Cambridge, and the piano at the Royal College of Music in London. In 1992 he was appointed répétiteur at the Opéra National de Lyon in France under Kent Nagano. From 1995 to 1998 Alexander spent four seasons in Germany as répétiteur at the Opera, and répétiteur and conductor at the Hesse State Opera in Wiesbaden, before returning to live in France to pursue a freelance career. He has worked as guest conductor, assistant and coach for Lyon, Marseille, Avignon, le Capitole Toulouse, l’Opéra National du Rhin (Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia), La Monnaie, le Grand Théâtre Geneva, as well as for Aix-en-Provence, Glyndebourne, and Montepulciano Festivals. Alexander also worked closely with Philippe Jordan Britten’s Peter Grimes and The Turn of the Screw (Graz), and collaborated with René Jacobs in Rome for Tancredi. Following three seasons as Chorus Master in Bern (where he also conducted Cendrillon and Dave Maric’s Ghosts), Alexander worked as Chorus Master at the Opéra National de Bordeaux from 2010-2014. During this time he also worked in Bayreuth with Philippe Jordan on Parsifal (2012). He became Chorus Master at WNO at the start of this season.

The choir will be accompanied by Jeff Howard, organist.

Jeffrey Howard was born in Cardiff and studied at the University of Wales College, Cardiff, and the Royal Academy of Music, specializing in organ performance and church music. Since graduating, he has pursued a freelance career as organist, pianist, singer, coach and conductor. He has accompanied leading international singers including Bryn Terfel, Sir Willard White, and, Rebecca Evans.

Jeff has performed throughout the United Kingdom and Europe including the Wigmore Hall, The Goethe Institute, Brussels, and St. Paul’s Cathedral, and has worked with orchestras such as The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and the Royal Philharmonic. He made his Royal Albert Hall debut in 2002 as soloist in Shostakovitch’s second piano concerto. Recent performance include performed Rachmaninov’s second piano concerto and Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto at St. David’s Hall, Cardiff with the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra and a recital with Bryn Terfel at Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool.

Jeff frequently provides arrangements for the BBC National Orchestra and Chorus of Wales, S4C and various solo artists. He is accompanist, singer and arranger for Only Men Aloud!, winners of the BBC competition ‘Last Choir Standing’ who recently won a Classical Brit Award for their second album on the Universal label. Jeff is also involved in cabaret and music theatre having worked with names such as Michael Ball, David Owen Jones, Peter Karrie, and more informally, Dame Shirley Bassey!

For the past 18 years, Jeffrey has held a post as vocal coach at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and at Welsh National Opera and Welsh National Youth Opera.

For those wishing to join the choir there will be rehearsal before the performance during the day. There will be a charge of £10 for those taking part and in addition a refundable deposit for copies of the music/text.

This is a post copied and posted from Thorne Moores’s website.

Fair Play – why book fairs?

I’ll be taking part in a small flurry of book fairs soon: The Rhondda, on September 3rd, Tenby (which I am helping to organise) on September 24th, and Carmarthen on October 1st.

Tenby Book Fair 2015

To stand at a stall, offering my wares, might seem a very Mediaeval way of going about things in the days of internet ordering and e-books. Besides, what are bookshops for, if not to provide any book that anyone is looking for? Literary festivals like Hay, with big names addressing crowds of fans are all very well, but why bother with book fairs?

The reason is that for most of us authors, such events are the only occasions when we get to meet our readers in the flesh, to discuss our work and hear their opinion. We write for ourselves, mostly, and perhaps to please a publisher or agent, but ultimately, since we choose to be published, rather than storing our work in notebooks under our bed, we write for “the reader” out there, who will devour our polished words. It becomes a somewhat surreal situation if our readers never materialise in the flesh. We need the contact to keep it real.

A fair also allows us to meet our fellow authors, in an atmosphere where everything is all about books, and sometimes it’s very healthy to escape the private isolation of writing and remind ourselves that we are not alone. There are other people as obsessed with writing as us.

For indie authors, who self-publish, and who want to rely on more than Kindle sales on Amazon, fairs can be almost the only way to put their printed books out there, for people to see. Many bookshops simply don’t stock independent authors. An ISBN number is not enough to get you on the “List.” And for us conventionally published authors, there is no guarantee that bookshops, even their local bookshops, will pay them any attention whatsoever. If you are lucky, you might find a copy of your book, buried in a dark corner, out of sequence, while the front displays concentrate on the highly promoted big names. If you are in the hands of one of the mega-publishing houses, which sees you as a potential block-buster in WH Smiths or on airport concourses, then they might send you off on tour round the country or the world, to meet your readers. They might flaunt your book cover on billboards for you. 99% of authors don’t get that treatment, so we have to put ourselves out there.

And that’s what book fairs are for. So do come. We’re a rare breed and well worth gawping at.

There are many genres and many books to browse over. And twenty-seven authors to chat to about their writing. The winners of the three writing competitions will be announced on the day and the prizes given.

And just a word of thanks here to the three publisher who will be donating the prizes:

There may also be a short chat with John and Fiona of http://showboat.tv/ who, as usual, will be filming the event.

So now let’s meet our author of today.Sarah Jane Butfield. Sarah Jane was born in Ipswich, Suffolk, UK. She is a wife, mother, retired Registered General Nurse and an international best-selling author of Travel, Nursing and Culinary memoirs. She has also written a series of self-help guides for new authors based on her experiences to date and inspires and mentors new authors in her role as CEO at Rukia Publishing.

Welcome,Sarah Jane, great to have you here today; last but not least!

And I’m pleased to finally arrive, Judith

So tell us, please,how long have you been writing?

It feels like I have been writing my whole life, but the reality is that I started writing in 2013. I think that is because the majority of the content of my books so far have been about my life and my experiences I am constantly reminiscing which completely takes over my thoughts.

What kind(s) of writing do you do?

I currently write non fiction author guides, travel and nursing memoirs. Although I also have a romance novel in progress and a couple of ghostwriting projects which are outside of my usual genre of writing.

Why did you choose to write in your particular field or genre? If you write more than one, how do you balance them?

To be honest I didn’t choose a genre when I started writing it was entirely by accident, hence the title of my first author guide, The Accidental Author. I resurrected my love of journaling, that I had in my childhood, after the traumatic events of the Brisbane floods in 2011. It was more of a cathartic exercise to begin with, but as I started to tell people about our experiences after relocating to Tasmania to start over and rebuild our lives, I was encouraged to share our story to help and inspire others who may be facing life changing events.

The Accidental Author is permanently free as I hope it offers aspiring authors a real glimpse of how they could start writing based on my experiences

So, what have you written?

Two Dogs and a Suitcase: Clueless in Charente

Our Frugal Summer in Charente: An Expat’s Kitchen Garden Journal

The Amatuer Authorpreneur

The Intermediate Authorpreneur

Where can we buy or see them?

I have added the links at the end ..

What are you working on at the minute?

I have 2 main projects on the go at the moment.

Firstly, I am co-writing the sequel to Shame by Phil Thomas after working with him on the second edition of book one which details his horrific true story of abuse within the UK criminal justice system in the 1970’s which is now part of a judicial review which culminates in 2017. We hope to coordinate the release of the sequel with the finalising of the court proceedings and issue of the final report on how to try to prevent events on this scale happening in the future.

Secondly, a bit overdue, I am in the final stages of preparing Ooh Matron 2! Bedpans to Boardrooms to be released.

Ooh Matron!

What’s Ooh Matron 2 about?

Book 2 in my nursing memoir series follows the story of my nursing career and patient experiences over a 28 year career when I worked in a variety of specialisms and roles in healthcare settings in both UK and Australia. These books form part of The Nomadic Nurse Series which is proving popular not only with medical memoir fans, but also those who enjoy travel and personal memoirs.

What was the hardest part of writing Glass Half Full?

In some respects the hardest part was reliving very personal and emotional events and trying to portray them accurately in a way that readers could relate to the decisions we made and how when life changing events happen you often don’t get long period to debate discuss and decide what to do. Sometimes you have to just make a decision and act on it.

What did you enjoy most about writing this book?

I really enjoyed reliving the happy times that occurred during our time in Australia. I still feel very privileged to have had the opportunity to live and work in a country which is so family and community focused and I have no regrets despite how life turned out for us there.

Are there misconceptions that people have about your book? If so, explain.

I think the biggest misconception some people have is that making the decision to emigrate was easy. It was very far away from being easy. Both Nigel and I had been married and divorced. We had child custody issues due to having children from previous marriages and this meant that our decision would result in some of our children remaining with our ex partners in the UK. This was one of the hardest decisions we have ever made, and as I said before trying to portray enough of our story without intrusion into our children’s lives, yet being able to give readers an idea of the rationale to our decisions was very hard. There were elements of my personal situation in the lead up to our decision which at the time of writing Glass Half Full I could not go into in detail because of the ages of the children and the ex partner involved, but suffice to say psychological and physical domestic abuse was involved.

What is the biggest thing that people THINK they know about your subject matter, that isn’t so?

This is tough, but honestly I think the answer is that unless you have personally parented children and step-children through child custody, divorce and child safety life events, it may be difficult for readers to totally comprehend the enormity of emotional and psychological thought processes involved. For this reason readers may build up preconceived ideas and as one reader wrote in a review “Surely he couldn’t have been the monster you portrayed him as.” When in fact I underplayed the extent of his behaviour towards me and my children.

What inspires you?

My biggest inspiration is my family. Without the support and encouragement from my husband Nigel I may never have started my writing journey on a professional level.

How did you get to be where you are in your life today?

I feel very fortunate to now be able to write and support new and aspiring authors as a full time occupation. This wasn’t a planned career move but it now feels as if it was meant to be and I love everything about what I do and the people I work with.

For your own reading, do you prefer ebooks or traditional paper/hard back books?

I love reading paperbacks and I thoroughly enjoy browsing in second hand book shops and charity shops for new material. I have a favourite book shop in Tenby actually called

However, my Kindle is overflowing with awesome books from fellow independent authors.

What book/s are you reading at present?

I am currently an ARC reader for Peri Hoskins and his upcoming book called East, which is set in Australia and although it is called literary fiction it is based on his memoirs so it is very poignant.

Who designed your book cover/s?

I have had a few cover designers but I have now developed a working relationship with Ida Jansson at AMYGDALA DESIGN. Together we are reworking some of my original covers and her work on Glass Half Full has been amazing.

Do you think that the cover plays an important part in the buying process?

Yes the cover plays a huge part. It’s funny how when I first started out I didn’t realise quite how important it was until I questioned what makes me pick up a book or click on a book online, and it’s the cover 80% of the time

What would you say are the main advantages and disadvantages of self-publishing against being published or the other way around?

What I love about self-publishing is having total control of not only the content and how I portray it but also the timeframes. Having a large family means that rigid timeframes would create increased pressure which I feel would stifle my writing ability. I like to write everyday even if that means getting up 5am for some quiet time!

Which social network worked best for you?

It’s funny how social networking has become so integral to publishing over the years and particularly so for independent authors. I love to interact with my readers and I find Facebook and Twitter the most responsive, however I get a lot of emails from my mailing list and via my blogs.

Let’s start by you telling us a little about yourself? Perhaps something not many people know?

I was born and raised in Dolgellau, North Wales and as a child was enchanted by local folk tales of Idris the giant who used to sit on Cader Idris, the mountain which overlooks the town. My imagination was far too big to stay restricted within my brain, so I would constantly make up stories. I was strongly influenced by Enid Blyton’s books which I devoured, and my stories always centred on magical trees and wishing wells. My biggest secret as a child was that there was a fairy door on the crab apple tree at the bottom of our garden. If I scrunched my eyes closed and tapped three times on the door, I would be transported to the magical Crabble Kingdom and was swept away on adventures with the Crabble Fairies. Oh, and other than my sons, I don’t think that anyone else knows that I can juggle!

I love the cover! Do tell us what your book is about?

‘Grace-Ella: Spells for Beginners’ is my debut children’s book *pauses for a little squeal* It’s a funny, magical adventure about friendship and being true to yourself, for 7-9 year olds. Grace-Ella is an ordinary little girl who lives in the seaside town of Aberbetws … ordinary until one Saturday, a black cat strolls through the back door of the Bevin’s house and takes up residence. Little does Grace-Ella know that the cat will reveal that on the ninth day of the ninth month of the ninth year of her life, she will become a witch. What ensues are sparkling spells and potion commotions. Despite there being strict rules from the Witch Council about not using magic to seek revenge on a foe, will Grace-Ella be able to find a way of using her magic so that Amelia, the school bully, gets the comeuppance she deserves? Well, I guess you’ll have to read the book to find out. ‘Grace-Ella’ will publish on the 15th of September with www.fireflypress.co.uk/

Are you working on another book?

‘Grace-Ella: Spells for Beginners’ is the first in a series of ‘Grace-Ella’ books. I am currently working on Book 2. To give you a sneaky hint, the second story is about Grace-Ella’s adventures at Witch Camp, where rules are broken with catastrophic consequences, cats go missing, a broomstick battle and of course cauldrons full of sparkling magic. I also have another young middle grade story, currently under consideration with a publisher, so fingers and toes crossed for that too.

Are your characters based on real people or did they all come entirely from your imagination?

Grace-Ella whooshed into my mind as I was driving to work one morning. I had to execute a perfect emergency swerve and come to a skidding halt in a layby. I quickly jotted down who Grace-Ella was. She was just the ordinary young girl who sits in the classroom, but has this amazing magical secret. Mrs Bevin, Grace-Ella’s mam, is definitely based on a real person … but I can’t possibly reveal who. She is very pernickety and appearances and keeping up with the neighbours are her main goals in life. Because of this, she greatly exaggerates situations and on discovering that her daughter is a witch, her distress is almost apocalyptical. Having worked as a Primary School teacher for twelve years, I have taught many children who all have their own unique and wonderful characteristics and it’s a mish-mash of all these traits that generally make up my characters.

Do you have a day job in addition to being a writer? If so, what do you do during the day?

I worked as a Primary School teacher for twelve years, but made the difficult decision at the beginning of this year, to give up my teaching position. I wanted to give my full attention and all my energy into raising my boys and my writing. Once my book publishes, I will be available for school visits and writing workshops. I write in the mornings when my youngest son attends Nursery School. I have recently decorated and created a beautiful office space to work in and find the morning hours simply evaporate when my imagination takes hold and I’m away. I have to be alone and in complete silence to write (fuelled by coffee), so once the boys are home, it’s time to be Mam. Becoming a children’s author was always that dream that collected cobwebs in the deep recesses of my mind for years and to have now achieved that, well … quite simply, it’s magical.

I also write a blog called ‘Sharon Marie Jones: Just Being Me’, which you can read at sharonmariej.wordpress.com. On my blog, you’ll find my journey through the tragic grief I battle, following the death of my 5-year-old son in March. Some of this journey is written as detailed accounts, some is written as poetry. I hope by being honest and open about my situation, my writing may help someone in the same, or similar situation.